Jerry, Sorry for top posting. Take offense if you like. The o= nly thing I have to say after experiencing the last few days on-list is to = (gently) point out that not everyone's goal in life is to run a system like= Windows. If that was what I wanted I'd be running Windows. I find F= reeBSD more intuitive and easier to use. And I'm prepared to accept that I = have to be a bit picky about the hardware I buy. I consider it a price wort= h paying. Would I like better hardware support? Of course! But if th= e price of that is a fundamental change to the OS interface, then I think t= he price is too high. It strikes me that Ubuntu are running very fas= t to turn Linux into Windows. They'll have good device support and a strong= GUI layer. I'm sure that will fit a lot of users needs, but /not mine/. People who wa= nt that should use Ubuntu. Or Windows. People who like the freedom and "con= figurability" offered by FreeBSD should use FreeBSD and accept the payoff. = And we should all just rub along, happy in the knowledge that we have chose= n the system we want.
-- Pe= ter Harrison _________________________________________________________________ On 3 Jan 201= 2 12:11, Jerry <je...@seibercom.net> wrote: On Tue, 03= Jan 2012 16:44:30 +1000 Da Rock articulated: > On 01= /03/12 11:15, Jeffrey McFadden wrote: > > I have a Toshiba Sate= llite U505-S2950 laptop with a Realtek > > RTL8191SEvB wireless= card built in. FreeBSD doesn't recognize this > > card and ca= n't use it, but Ubuntu does. > > > > Would it be po= ssible to go glom a Linux driver off the web > > someplace and = install it in my FreeBSD and get the wireless to > > work? I'm= using a USB Belkin in it now, but that's an unhandy > > thing = sticking out like it does. > > > Unfortunately the API= 's are completely different. Adrian Chadd does a > lot of work on= Wifi in FreeBSD, but I'm not sure if its on the todo > list or no= t. Try a search on google... This is what drives me to pull my= hair out. I have stated several times that all the *nix/*BSD consort= ium needs to do to become truly competitive in the market is to devis= e a uniform API that works the same on FreeBSD as on Ubuntu and every= other non-windows based system. The concept is so simple that it ama= zes me that it was not implemented eons ago. The problem= is that the non-windows operating system authors all behave live lit= tle children. None of them can simply get along. The all have to insi= st that "they" have the best and everyone else is wrong. They swing b= etween Narcissism and Paranoia on any given day. You would have an ea= sier time getting a Jew and a Muslim to sit down at a table and enjoy= a ham dinner than you have of getting the powers that be in the non-= windows community to agree to anything, other than their hatred of Mi= crosoft of course. I have spoken with representatives of compa= nies, the last one being Brother International, who plain out stated = that they only support Microsoft (naturally - they offer the easiest = and best documented system for driver installation) and a vanilla Lin= ux solution. They openly stated that there is no way that they would = even attempt to write software for a market as fractured as the *nix/= *BSD community and then be straddled with the problem of supporting s= uch software. Hell, every time someone in the BSD community dotted an= "i" in the kernel source code the poor driver authors would have to = rewrite their device code. Certainly a task I would not want to be as= signed. Ubuntu is years ahead of FreeBSD in creating a useful = and fully functional desktop, I read where they were working on makin= g it possible to use a driver disk intended for Microsoft's Windows O= S usable in Ubuntu. They were working on a method of simply extractin g the code needed directly from a CD and using it directly on Ubuntu. Now that is what I call true "forward" thinking. The au= thors of FreeBSD, and to a lesser extend Linux remind me of group of = of passengers left floating in the ocean after their ship sank. The b= est case scenario at that point would be to be rescued by another pas= sing ship. However, while waiting for that to occur it would seem log= ical to grab onto any object that floated by and thereby allow the st= randed individual a better chance at survival. If these were Ubuntu s= urvivors there would be no question as to what they would choose to d= o, as well as some of the more enlighten *nix" users. However, the *B= SD users, especially the FreeBSD ones would rather drown than accept = a solution that was not counter to what everyone else was trying to a= ccomplish. I have, mistakenly I admit, stated that there are n= o drivers for lots of devices currently available on the market, espe= cially the higher end ones. That statement is essentially incorrect. = There are drivers for these devices, and other OSs are taking advanta= ge of them. FreeBSD, in its unending war against simplicity and conti= nued insistence on reinventing the wheel, refuses to avail itself of = them. You can lead a horse to water; however, you cannot stop = it from running head long into the desert and dying of thirst. Stupid= ity IS its own punishment. It took the Catholic church u= ntil 1992 to admit that Galileo Galilei was correct and the earth doe= s rotate around the sun. So there is hope. Perhaps someday FreeBSD wi= ll become "enlightened" also. -- Jerry ♔ = Disclaimer: off-list followups get on-list replies or get ignored. Please do not ignore the Reply-To header. ____________________ ______________________________________________ _______________= ________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailin= g list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd= .org" _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"